The ba meidineum is the Achehnese ceremony of the second formal visit paid by the mother-in-law to her pregnant daughter, about a month after the earlier visit known as the vie bu. As Snouck Hurgronje describes it in his account of Achehnese pregnancy customs, “a second visit of the same description and of similar duration is paid by the mother-in-law about a month after the vie bu, and is known as ba meidineum. On this occasion she brings with her sundry kinds of sweetmeats (peunajoh) and fruits.” Together with the vie bu, the ba meidineum marks out the progress of an Achehnese pregnancy by the formal attentions which the family of the husband’s mother is bound to pay to the household of her daughter-in-law.
The vie bu and the ba meidineum
The two visits are part of the same cycle of duties. The first visit — the vie bu — is the more substantial of the two. On that occasion the mother-in-law brings to her daughter-in-law’s house “a large pot (kanèt) of boiled rice, another of goats’-flesh and a great tray (dalong) of fruit, to the total value of about 25 dollars, or else they save themselves the trouble by giving ‘the dangdang uncooked’ (dangdang meuntah), i.e. the actual sum of money named above.” Those of humbler rank confine their gift to a kathig of cooked rice and a bowl of meat, or to bu kulah and some additional dishes. The mother-in-law remains for two or three nights under her daughter-in-law’s roof on the occasion of the vie bu. The ba meidineum, paid about a month later, is of similar duration but lighter in its gifts: it consists principally of peunajoh (sweetmeats) and fruits.
The place of the visits in Achehnese pregnancy
The two visits belong to that complex of pantang (mysterious rules) by which the pregnant woman in Acheh must regulate her conduct. “In Acheh, no less than in Java, the pregnant woman must pay particular regard to certain mysterious rules [pantang], carelessness in the observance of which is supposed to be injurious to her or to her child.” The visits of the mother-in-law are, on one side, the formal outward expression of the concern of the husband’s family for the wellbeing of mother and child; on the other, they are the means by which that concern is made practically effective, by the provision of meat, fruit, and sweetmeats at the moments when the pregnant woman is most in need of nourishment.
The pattern of Achehnese life-cycle ceremonies
The ba meidineum is one of a long series of ceremonial attentions by which the Achehnese mark the great epochs of life — pregnancy, birth, marriage, and death. As with the other life-cycle ceremonies described by Hurgronje, it is governed by adat rather than by Mohammedan law; “it is the adat which has so far almost exclusively controlled” such customs. The ba meidineum, like the vie bu, is not a religious ceremony in the strict sense; no teungku is called, no prayer recited; the visit is simply the formal performance of a domestic duty. It is characteristic of the Achehnese treatment of life-cycle events that even the periods of pregnancy should be punctuated by formal visits of this kind — visits which, in their fixed sequence and their prescribed gifts, take on something of the character of a ritual.
See Also
- Vie bu
- Pantang rules
- Peunajoh
- Adat Meukuta Alam
- 3rd, 5th, 7th, 10th, 40th, 44th, 50th, 100th, 1000th day ceremonies
- Peutron
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.